


Hurting Low From Living High

by BoMarlowe



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Depression, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Marijuana, Painkillers, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-28
Updated: 2014-12-28
Packaged: 2018-03-04 00:37:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2902913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BoMarlowe/pseuds/BoMarlowe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My heart would break without you<br/>Might not awake without you<br/>Been hurting low, from living high for so long<br/>I'm sorry, and I love you<br/>Sing with me, "Bell Bottom Blue"<br/>I'll keep on searching for an answer<br/>'Cause I need you more than dope</p>
<p>- Dope, by Lady Gaga</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hurting Low From Living High

**Author's Note:**

> Please read the warning tags. Hope everyone had a happy holiday.

Dean snuffs his cigarette out beneath his shoe, scraping it against the marred concrete of his apartment’s roof top. It wasn’t much for a final round, but he supposes it doesn’t really matter.

It’s cold up here, biting him and prickling his skin, but he’s lulled by the three Vicodin in his system and though he feels the chill, it’s not bothering him like it should. Wind’s picking up and ruffling his thin shirt, makes it feel like soft waves of cotton are rolling over his skin. There are goose bumps alright, but that’s to be expected. He left his jacket behind on purpose.

Sluggishly, Dean toes off his sneakers and kicks them to the side. The laces twist with every new gust of air and for a moment he can relate to them, to their helplessness. To be carried away so effortlessly by the sky could be a blessing or a curse, and he’s going to find out soon which one it is. He hopes for whichever one hurts less. He just wants to fall. 

Stepping forward is easy, doesn’t take nearly as much effort as he thought. The city lights are guide enough to keep him moving until he’s at the edge, only a two-foot high railing separating him from release.

_One last drink_ , he thinks, remembering the nip in his pocket. Would be a shame to waste it.

He slips a trembling hand into his jeans to retrieve the small bottle of whiskey stored there, the only size he can buy anymore after his last promise to Cas that he’d quit.

Dean tilts his head back and lets the liquid ooze down his throat like molasses, warming him with a honeyed familiarity. He can feel it pool in his stomach and hold him like an old friend, shooing away the last of the tremors rattling through his body. It’s a shame he doesn’t have more, doesn’t have enough to swell the courage it’s taking to peer out over the edge.

For a moment, he considers dropping the bottle off the roof so he can watch the path his body will take, so he can see the directions the pieces of him will shatter. But that would give away his position and he doesn’t want to do this with an audience. He needs to die like the Winchesters have before him: hands tied and alone.

Dean can see his breath now, little storms curling around in front of his face. He can’t feel the cold at all anymore but the evidence of it is right here before him. Has he taken too much? A single cigarette mixed with weed, three Vicodin, and a nip of whiskey. He’s never had all three before at the same time and paranoia starts creeping in like snaking tendrils up his legs.

_No_ , he commands, _stop it_. Like it really matters. He’s jumping to his death in a matter of moments and whatever is happening to his body right now is inconsequential. Dean’s been drunker, higher than this before plenty of times and he’s always pulled through just fine. It’s not like he’s going to beat himself to the punchline.

With a little difficulty, Dean steps up onto the ledge and gives himself a second to find his balance, his footing. He’s a little wobbly and yet also somehow very sure of himself and his ability to stand still. It would almost be funny if Dean accidentally fell before he jumped, if he tried to take control of his death only to have the rug ripped out from under his feet. Not much longer now, though. He only needs to say his final goodbyes.

“D-Dad,” Dean starts, his tongue too slow and uncooperative for his liking. He’s whispering, but these aren’t things that need to be said with power, just aloud. “Fuck you.”

He leaves it at that.

“Mom, I – I love you, and I’m sorry. I – I tried,” he says, and though he knows he’s alone, Dean’s still a little ashamed at how much he’s stuttering.

He’s seen bees drown in swimming pools with more dignity than this.

“Sammy…f-fuck.” Dean sways but straightens out before he goes over, looking down at the poorly lit gravel parking lot below. He wonders how hard it will be for them to get the blood from all the rocks.  “It wasn’t supposed to be this way,” he says, chest heaving, “we were meant for better things, Sammy, and I fucked it all up.”

He sucks in a shallow breath, lungs twitching to match the staccato rhythm of his broken heart. Dean had blamed John for so long, had wanted his father to be solely responsible for all the fucked up things and the terrifying days his family has been through. He wanted John’s habits to be the reason Sammy got all messed up in things he shouldn’t have, wanted to nail John to the cross and set fire to the straw at his father’s feet.

That would make it so much easier, so much better, Dean’s sure of it. If he could have one person to blame for everything without having to look inward at himself, at his own list of failings that brought him face to face with the hour of his impending death.

Sammy was supposed to grow up and be Dean’s best friend, was going to keep on believing in those white picket fairy tales that he’d read about in books and fantasized of having when he was free from the shackles of John’s reign. He was never supposed to get twisted up in Dean’s shadows.

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” he says again, “it was – God, Sammy, it was supposed to be better. I should have been better.”

Dean doesn’t bother wiping away the tears that burn down his cheeks. He knows he’d be seeing his baby brother’s corpse without them, if they weren’t blurring his already fuzzy line of vision.

“Cas,” he breathes, pained by the way the name sounds so dull and heavy in his mouth. “I –”

“Dean?”

The stairwell door swings open with a groan, bathing a strip of the concrete roof in a dark, yellow light. Dean doesn’t dare turn toward the voice he recognizes, to the one he loves. He knows it’s too much to hope for Cas to somehow not notice him and turn back, to crawl back into their bed and dream sweet dreams until morning.

“Dean. Dean, no.”

The words would be deceptively calm if Dean didn’t know Cas as well as he does.

“Go back inside,” Dean says, more of a request than a demand. Cas shouldn’t have to see this.

Cas has never listened to Dean before, so it’s predictable that he doesn’t listen now. Dean can hear the hesitant way Cas inches forward, and every footfall breaks Dean’s heart a little more, wedges apart the chasm that blackens the center of his chest.

“Talk to me,” Cas pleads, creeping ever closer, “we can talk about this.”

“Stop,” Dean barks, but when Cas continues to ignore him, he adds, “Stop or I’ll jump.”

Cas halts immediately.

Dean doesn’t know what to do, doesn’t know how to deflate this situation. Cas should still be sleeping warmly in their bed with the covers pulled high over his lips like he always does. Cas should be lightly snoring with those covered lips parted just enough to chap them beautifully by morning. Cas should be ignorant and happy and not up on the roof watching Dean leap to his death.

“I thought we were through this,” Cas says, and Dean’s definitely the one to blame for that. He let Cas believe he was sober and recovering. He let Cas believe things were on the upswing.

Dean shifts his weight, swaying a little again as he does so. He can hear Cas gasp though he knows Cas shouldn’t be worried, not yet. Dean isn’t done with his goodbyes or his confessions, and despite the lure of ending it all as swiftly as possible, he has to get those off his chest, has to say them out loud just once.

“I lied,” Dean answers, which is what he was going to say to the silence before Cas came out, anyway. “Baby please, just go.”

“It’s okay,” Cas offers, and Dean can hear him take a single step forward. He lets Cas get away with it because it’s only one, because he’s not ready yet. “It’s okay. It’s just a slip up, Dean. We can get you back on track.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Why?” Cash pushes, and he takes another step. Dean should say something about it, should tell Cas to back the fuck off and leave him alone. Cas isn’t doing either of them a favor by getting closer.

“There’s no going back for me,” Dean utters so quietly that he’s not sure if Cas even heard him. “I tried. This is it.”

And he did try. Dean tried so fucking hard. He quit cold turkey and went through the twelve steps. He visited that bastard in prison and forgave him. He spent a little time in prison himself.

There is nothing that can make this better, Dean knows that now. He’d toasted to his final drinks, his final puffs, he promised Cas over and over that he’d talk to him before things got too bad and he relapsed. Dean ate all the fucking chocolate he wanted but there were never enough endorphins in the goddamn candy to compensate for all the ones he’d lost.

Against his better judgment, Dean even accepted a higher power. Church was boring and painful, but Cas looked at him with such pride and pleasure every time they made it through a service that Dean endured it just for him, for those smiling blue eyes.

It wasn’t until sex had lost his interest as well that Dean knew his life would never be the same.

They said it would take time for Dean’s body to relearn happiness without the drugs, but they never said how long. They didn’t say how much everything would hurt and feel worthless.

“We can keep trying,” Cas promises, and Dean wishes he could believe it. “Dean, I love you.”

Cas says it like it’s the last time he ever will, and for all they know, it could be. Dean’s body is still loose and pliant from the drugs and alcohol in his system and mercy is just a step away.

“Don’t say that.” Dean can’t hear that right now, not when he’s trying to focus on all the reasons why he’s up here in the first place. “I can’t.”

“I love you, I always have, and – and I need you. Please, don’t do this.”

Dean squeezes his blurred eyes shut against the wind, crying, biting his lip in an effort not to make a show of it. Cas has been the only reason Dean’s been able to make through it the day at all, the only reason that he drags himself out of bed and bothers to pretend like things are okay. Cas deserves so much better than this; Dean’s a fucking mess, and the man he loves deserves a medal for all the ways he’s tried to put Dean back together.

“I killed him,” Dean says in a weak line of defense.

Cas eases forward another step, and the Vicodin is starting to wear off. Dean’s been out here too long now, wasting the calming effects of the painkillers instead of doing what needs to be done. The chill is starting to get to him.

“Jake Talley killed him,” Cas asserts, his voice growing deeper, “he’s in prison and he’s never getting out. It’s not your fault.”

“He was there because of me.”

“Dean,” is all Cas says, and suddenly Cas is right there, up close, gently brushing his forehead against the fluttering fabric of Dean’s shirt.  

The warmth of Cas against him is a point of focus, a sharp contrast to the cool air sinking steadily into his bones. When Cas doesn’t make a move to pull Dean down, doesn’t jerk him away from the ledge, Dean sucks in another deep breath and whimpers. There’s far too much in his system for him to hold back. Dean’s breaths are slow and shallow like he can’t get enough air – a symptom of the drugs and whiskey, no doubt – and vertigo is slowly taking him over.

“Sam, he –”

“Your brother loved you,” Cas interrupts, though his voice is a little muffled where it’s pressed into Dean’s shirt. “He wouldn’t blame you for what happened. None of us do.”

Bile rises in Dean’s throat. He’s starting to feel nauseous, shaky again and hot on the back of his neck even though he should be freezing.

He can still see the bottom of Sam’s shoes, slick from the rain pouring in buckets around them, shiny from the street lamp spotlighting them on the sidewalk. He can still hear the sound of the blade as it pierced into his baby brother’s back, can feel Sam’s last gasping, sticky breath on his cheek.

Dean lifts his eyes to meet the jagged skyline over the row of buildings, blinking back the last of the falling tears. He’d been unable to protect Sam in his hour of need, failed to save him from a painful, early demise.

But even if what Cas says it true, if no one blames Dean for Sam’s murder, it still doesn’t change everything else he’s done. It doesn’t change the fact that Dean has put them all through hell.

The wound just below his left clavicle throbs with a dull ache, and he tries to remind himself that it’s just a phantom pain, that it’s not real. The Vicodin stopped taking away the pain long ago but the whiskey seemed to do a fine job until the last few weeks. He traces over the ridges of the scar, wishing he’d died beside his brother. Things would have been a lot simpler that way.

“Does it hurt?” Cas asks, recognizing Dean’s routine movements as his hand flutters carefully over the scar. “Is that why you’re up here?”

Of course it hurts. It hurts all the time, every day. Sometimes it hurts so bad that it wakes Dean up in the middle of the night, makes him rip off his shirt and stare into the mirror so he can see if he’s been shot again.

Other times the pain comes with a flash of that rain, soaking through his clothes and carrying the blood that pumped out of him down his shirt in blooming, blotting trails. Comes with the sound of his own screams as he ran toward his brother, undeterred by the bullet meant to slow him down.

But that’s not why Dean’s up here. He’s up here because the pain didn’t stop in his flesh, because the meds they put him on seemed to cure more than they were supposed to. He’s up here because the only happiness he’s felt since Sam’s death comes from little white pills and the price for that happiness is more than his family can bear.

“If this…if this is what life’s always gonna be like,” Dean starts, not entirely avoiding the question, “then I don’t want to live it.”

Cas is silent behind him for a moment, taking shallow little breaths that Dean can feel heating his back. Dean is starting to think it might be best if he just takes a step forward and puts them both out of their misery, because the suspense must be hell for Cas, must be eating him up inside. Dean knows what it’s like to be on the losing side of a lengthy battle and he doesn’t want to put Cas through it any more than he has to.

“What life is like,” Cas echoes, and there’s the sound of defeat Dean was hoping for. Maybe Cas will go back inside now.

“Yeah.”

“But, I’m in your life.”

Dean bites his tongue.

“I’m not worth staying alive for?” Cas growls, his voice a little louder than before. He steps away then, taking the warmth with him. Dean shivers and turns around for the first time, and he’s a little surprised that he didn’t wobble when he did so.

Cas is raking stiff fingers through his hair, staring back at Dean with fire in his dry baby blues. He’s not crying, which is a relief. Dean’s doing enough crying for the both of them.

His tongue is still nailed to the roof of his mouth, though Dean doesn’t think he’d know what to say even if he could.

When Dean says nothing, Cas nods.

“You know, Dean…I don’t understand what you’re going through, but – but I love you more than all of that. I do. I love you more than what’s happened to you and what you’ve become. That’s what unconditional love is. That’s what you felt for your brother and that’s why you’ve spiraled so far since his death.” Cas’ voice tightens as though he’s fighting back tears of his own, but after he takes a moment to swallow and suck in a deep breath, he’s regained his control. “But I can’t – I can’t watch this.”

As Dean had hoped, Cas turns on his heels as he pulls his robe tighter around him, walking back toward the door on the path made by the strip of light. Dean can’t tear his eyes away even though he should. This is what he wanted; this is for the best. And yet he can’t stop the morbid, impulsive thoughts keeping his eyes on his love as Cas closes in on the stairwell. It’s the last time he’ll see him. The last thing he’ll see before it’s lights out, good night.

Cas stops, and even though there’s some distance between them now, Dean can see the way he’s shaking when his hand rests on the metal knob. “I don’t want you to do this,” Cas calls out over the wind, “so if you decide that you love me as much as I love you, that you love me more than the drugs and what they’ve cost us, then you know where to find me.”

With that, Dean watches as Cas leaves, closing the door behind him and taking the light from the stairwell with him. Dean’s back to being alone in the dark, alone with his thoughts, alone with the fear and the nausea pulling through his spine and urging him to safer ground.

Except now Dean’s feeling more than just pity and fear: he’s angry, furious with Cas for what he’s said. How could Cas think Dean doesn’t love him? For chrissakes, that’s why Dean’s up here, too. Not because his scar is hurting him, not because he can’t outrun the memories that fuck him up inside and keep him clinging to Vicodin’s heels. He’s standing on a goddamn ledge because he loves Cas so much that he can’t keep putting him through this. Loves him more than he loves himself.

Life had been good before, much simpler, and loving Cas was so easy and natural. Dean isn’t capable of giving Cas more days like those, can barely function when his stomach gives an uneasy flop at the thought of having to wake day after day for more of the same unbearable nonsense since it happened. He’s sinking and dragging Cas into the undertow with him.

Dean stands on the ledge long enough to lose the warm buzz from the pills, but he’s trembling so violently that he knows he’ll go over before he’s ready if he doesn’t step down. He doesn’t know whether he’s shaking from the cold or the lack of drugs or the adrenaline running through his system, but it outlasts the nausea and the vertigo. He shakes until his muscles are sore and his cheeks are dry, shoulders curling inward in an attempt to shield himself from the chill.

It’s not until Dean gets that subtle, slow-budding craving for more painkillers that he realizes he’s been on the roof for two hours. It’s sad and a little humiliating that his body runs on such an efficient internal clock these days.

Worse is the sudden need to go back inside and pop another couple of pills, to abandon his quest for a permanent solution in exchange for temporary relief. He’s ready to jump off a fucking building, but the phantom pains are growing and his mouth is watering and Christ he’s so pathetic. He’s a wretched mess.

Dean could go inside and take some Vicodin, let his body float while he rethinks this master plan of his.

But Cas is in there, probably waiting and worried. He’d see Dean and think the best of him just to be disappointed when Dean’s high less than an hour later.

And that awful, heartbroken look on Cas’ face would send Dean right back up the stairs tomorrow night for round two.

“Fuh-fuck,” Dean stammers, so cold now he can barely manipulate his lips to form the words he wants them to.

He’s still on the ledge, legs burning from standing there so long. It hurts to move but he does so anyway, stepping back until his feet are on slightly lower ground. He looks over the edge of the building, down at the empty parking lot where he’d fantasized about cracking open and splattering on the gravel. Dean could still do it. He could still jump right now and he’d never have another unwanted craving for that languid buzz ever again.

Cas’ voice rings steadily in his ears, though, nagging him and picking at the soft skin on the back of his arms.

“Dad,” Dean says to the emptiness around him, trying to keep the agony grating his insides to a dull throb, “wherever you are, wh-whatever you’re doing, I hope you’re f-fucking miserable. I hope you know y-you killed both your boys. You killed us both.”

Dropping to his knees, Dean feels the hollowed husk of his old self shrivel and crumble to dust. The dull throb is still there but he feels it more distantly now, like he’s detached from it and watching it slowly bob away on the rippling waters, a low roar of white noise filling his ears.

“We – we were just trying to find you, dad. I shouldn’t have dragged Sammy along, I – Dad, that guy fucking stabbed him. He stabbed Sam in the fucking _back_. I was shot, I was shot and I couldn’t – I tried so hard to – he was gone and then Sammy was gone and I – where the fuck are you?” Dean’s devolved into a sobbing mess, choking out the words in stilted clusters until he’s barely coherent, hardly able to understand himself.

“You left and we…you left, fuck – didn’t know what to do without you. Sammy shouldn’t have been there – dammit, I made him go with me dad and he’s dead, he’s fucking dead – you’re out there and we’re – we’re dead.”

Without thinking, Dean pulls the empty nip from his pocket and hurls it as far and as hard as he can. He watches it sail through the air with a twinge of jealousy until it smashes unceremoniously into the next building over, shattering and raining little shards of glass down onto the landing below.

He’s pacing back and forth, huffing, crying, roaring into the night with how frantic he is, how frightened. He almost doesn’t notice the lights from the other building flicker on behind closed curtains, almost doesn’t catch the way the curtain jerks to the side as a pair of exhausted eyes tries to find the source of the noise.

Forgetting his shoes, Dean darts away from the ledge toward the stairwell. He’s too cold and too sober to be thinking clearly, too deep in his own misery to do anything other than drown in it.

Beyond the door is light and warmth, two things Dean’s body desperately yearned for and is soaking in with grateful fervor. He leans against the wall as the door groans to a close, arms held tight around his chest, and laughs.

Nothing is funny, not even close. Nothing hurts less now that he’s technically back inside. He laughs because he’s so far down the hole that the motion is a reflex, survival instinct kicking in and keeping him from chewing through sanity’s leash.

“Fuck you, dad,” Dean smiles, and finally feels like he’s saying his peace. He’s not sure if he managed any complete sentences, but he trusts the lighter weight of his heart, the way it beats a little easier than it has in years.

It’s with the unexpected smile on his face that Dean thinks again of Cas, of the things he said.

They’ve been together a long time – longer than most. Dean knew he could lean on Cas in those initial stages after Sam’s murder, but he didn’t expect how much he would need, how heavy his weight would be in Cas’ arms. He never expected to become an addict himself ( _like his father, like John fucking Winchester_ ), didn’t know how delicate he could be under such devastating circumstances.

What they say is true, he knows. You never know how strong you are until that strength is tested, and Dean didn’t turn out to be very strong at all. Cas, though – Cas is the strongest person Dean has ever known, hands down.

Christ, Dean loves him. Loves him so much.

Dean looks down the empty stairwell at the scuff marks on the steps, at the strange stains and old paint on the walls. He tries to find patterns in them, searches for a sign, wishes for the strength to go back down the stairs and face his problems.

Ending it all had seemed like the right way to do that, seemed like facing everything head on. But now that act seems like another way of running and he doesn’t know what to with that, can’t handle being like John in more ways than one. Drinker, drug addict, runner extraordinaire. Runs so damn well that Dean hasn’t been able to find him in years, hasn’t even wanted to since Sam died trying.

Dean doesn’t have to run. He may have failed in so many other ways, but he can still come back from this one.

Cas said he would be there. Cas said he loves Dean more than…more than all of this.

Pushing himself up, Dean swallows back his puny pride and the bile in his throat and descends the stairs with slow, irresolute steps. The fear he’s feeling now is so much more than what he felt on the ledge. Death is preferable to Cas changing his mind, to Cas deciding he doesn’t want Dean anymore and is packing his things.

Dean’s sick with the thought that Cas leaving is a real possibility. His stomach knots with every step downward that he takes, twisting, reminding him that he needs Cas and he needs pills but he can’t have both.

He’s been picking the pills for so long that he may as well of hung a silver medal around Cas’ neck.  

The hunger for euphoria spikes again, makes his mouth water for the easy detachment he gets from the pills. Just one would make this whole situation easier: he could loosen up, relax, remember what it’s like to be okay for just another hour and talk things through. He could lay in bed and turn up the heat, let the gentle high roll and bubble through him like sea foam cresting on sun-warmed sand.

That’s something people don’t understand, something Dean didn’t understand himself when he watched his father shake his nearly-empty pill bottles with a nervous frown. It’s not about having fun or letting loose, not like alcohol. It lets Dean feel weightless when pain is shackled to his wrists, helps him feel grounded when pain has snipped the tethers keeping him from drifting away.

He tries not to think about that when his hand is on the door to his apartment.

Inside, Dean can hear Cas crying. It’s low, muffled by their bedroom door, but hurts Dean in ways he didn’t expect. He’s heard Cas cry before, but this time it sounds different, feels wrong. Dean wonders if Cas thinks he’s dead. He still kind of wishes he was.

Dean’s skin crawls, prickles as he makes his way down the hall. It’s a little like walking toward the ledge had been, but worse.

He nudges open the door with a trembling hand.

“Cas,” Dean says, selfishly relieved that his voice is steadier than the rest of him.

Cas is sitting on the bed, hunched over, phone in one hand with tissues in the other. Tears mar his beautiful face and Dean’s responsible for that. He can hardly recall a time when Cas cried that it wasn’t it fault.

When Cas’ head snaps up, he sucks in a sharp breath and drops the phone, crumples the tissues in his other hand with a startled fist. “Dean.”

As though being called by siren song, Dean follows the sound of his name into the bedroom and stands at the edge of the bed, afraid to come any closer but submissive nonetheless. “I’m sorry.”

Cas just stares back at him, mouth open, eyes wide and unbelieving. It hurts to see Cas’ skin all red and blotchy, to see him wracked so thoroughly with despair. “I -” Cas starts, then stops himself when something else crosses his mind. It’s obvious by the way his eyes narrow in suspicion. “I threw out all your pills. Flushed them.”

Dean can tell Cas is waiting for him to freak out, to scream, to accuse him of ugly things with uglier words like he’s done in the past. Dean almost wants to, encouraged by the swelling threat of misery he’ll surely endure once full withdrawal sets in. He wants another pill so bad that he’s willing to check the bathroom for any that may have fallen on the floor, that he’d drink from the damn toilet if he thought he’d get enough residue for even the smallest, faintest buzz.

But as Cas continues to stare him down with the challenge despite being so hurt by all this, so torn up, Dean knows there’s only one thing he wants more, that he needs.

“That’s okay,” Dean says, and he means it even though he’s terrified of what’s to come without them. “It’s – that’s probably, uh, for the best.”

As Cas’ features soften, Dean’s unexpected surge of strength and sincerity grows. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Dean says, hands gripping the footboard to keep from shaking too hard. “I can’t do this without you.”

Cas swings his feet off the bed, leaving the used tissues behind to gather Dean in his arms, pulling him close and burying his face in the soft juncture between Dean’s neck and shoulder. “Dean, God. I – I thought you were going to do it. I thought you were going to jump.”

Dean did, too. He really did.

“I’m so sorry,” Dean repeats, and he’d say it a million more times if he could. “Baby, I need you.”

“I need you too, Dean.”

“No,” Dean stops him, pushing him away gently so he can look into Cas’ eyes, so Cas can see the sincerity through the wild, desperate layers Dean feels so wrapped up in. “Cas, I need you. I need you more than the pills.”

Cas cries harder, if such a thing is possible.

Dean holds Cas tight, uses him as an anchor now that he feels so lost and disconnected from everything that’s happened, from what he just tried to do on the roof. Cas is warm and wonderful and perfect, and Dean knows this is the right choice, knows having Cas is so much better than running.

“I’ve been hurting for so long, Cas. I’ve been _high_ for so long that I’m just – I’m sorry. I love you more.”

Cas pulls him back toward the bed, refusing to let any space gather between them for too long, and urges him with tender, worried hands beneath the blankets. They’ve got less than twenty-four hours before the worst of the withdrawal symptoms kick in and Dean wants to make the most of them that he can.

“Promise me,” Cas begs, and he doesn’t have to clarify. Dean knows what he’s asking for.

“I won’t do that again.” Dean says, pausing to kiss Cas’ soft, welcoming lips. He pretends not to notice when Cas winces at the smell of whiskey on Dean’s breath.

“And?”

“And…I love you more than pills, more than alcohol, more than what it’s done to us. What I’ve done to us,” Dean corrects, letting the blame rest wearily on his shoulders where it belongs.

Beneath the cover of blankets and the whirring fan above them, Dean can’t help but notice how being held like this, with the confession that the drugs mean less to him than the forgiving, devoted arms around him, that it does feel a little bit like falling. 


End file.
